In Vino Veritas - Recap

The episode begins with a couple, Jonah Drake and Samantha Wilson arriving at an exclusive party. Tom arrives and tells Albert Vogel that they are all set and things are where they need to be. Jonah leaves Samantha in the company of two hot women and he goes to meet Vogel. He also greets Jack Davari who standing next to Vogel. Jack and Vogel take Jonah to show him something exquisite. Jonah is totally mesmerized by what he sees and decides to buy it at any cost. Next, Greg and Sarah arrive at a crime scene where the officer tells them that two guys were shooting at an oil barrel; but instead of oil, they found blood! Sarah and Greg open the barrel to find a man dressed in a tuxedo. Looks like he was dressed to kill; or be killed!

David takes the corpse for autopsy and Hodges decides to stick with the barrel as he can smell wine! Next, we see CSI Mac Taylor arrive at the office. He is there to meet Russell. Russell hands Mac the ticket to a show; it is a surprise for Christine. In fact this whole trip is a surprise for her as they don’t get to spend time together and so Mac wants to do something special for her. According to Mac, Christine is still at the convention and so they decide to wait for her at her hotel and also grab a bite. Robbins and Greg are with the dead body and they have not identified the victim. But Robbins finds a cufflink on the tux; it says JD. There is a gunshot wound to the face which damaged the brain stem.

Also, there is a wound on the victim’s palm; it looks like a bullet wound, but it was caused by an object which has a head. Morgan and Hodges are with the barrel which is charred from the inside. Hodges tells her that this enhances the taste of wine. The barrel is made of white oak from France; it is very rare and this makes it easy for them to track down the manufacturer or the purchaser. Sarah tells Russell that the victim’s stomach contents show that he was having whale! That is exotic. This leads them to Vogel. Brass and Sarah arrive at the mansion and they see Tom supervising some crates filled with very expensive wine. Brass and Sarah then meet Vogel and show him the picture. They then show him the cufflinks and Vogel tells them that those belonged to Jack Davari.

He was a fine wine taster. But murder doesn’t seem possible to Vogel as Jack was a much loved man. He tells them that he did have a fight with Marc Ratelle from the famous wine making family. Marc was at the party as he was trying to buy back a crate of wine from Jack. The wine was rare and there are only 600 bottles left in the world. Jack wanted to put it up for auction which fetched him a million against the 200,000 that Ratelle was offering him. It was an anonymous bidder. Next, Mac and Russell arrive at the hotel and knock at Christine’s room’s door. But there is no answer. Russell notices blood on the door knob and he points it out to Mac. They break open the door and they see that there has been struggle in the room. Russell calls his team.

Finn and Nick process the scene and they infer that the person who came in was already bleeding. And the person grabbed the object that Finn is holding in her hand and smashed the glass table with it. They find a bloodied men’s shirt under the bed; it looks like whoever was wearing the shirt, wasn’t the one who was bleeding. So, he could be the suspect. But then where is the victim? Sarah and Greg learn that Marc checked out earlier from the hotel; earlier than the decided date. Sarah gets a call saying that someone broke into Vogel’s wine cellar. Ratelle is breaking all the wine bottles in the cellar. Henry tells Russell that the blood from the paperweight, knob and the shirt belonged to the same person; an unknown female.

Morgan arrives with a 1936 and it costs $82,000. Hodges tells her that the wine from the smashed bottles and the cellar seem fake; something is not right about them. He then opens the bottle Morgan brought and they drink it. This one seems to be the real deal and it was found in Marc’s car. The reports also show that the wine from the smashed bottles contain radioactive isotopes. It looks like Marc knew that the wine put up for auction was fake. Brass interrogates Marc and asks him that why he wanted to buy the wine from Jack when he knew that they were fake ones that Jack was producing. Marc tells them that the wine is its reputation. Marc did not want the fake ones to get into the market which could destroy the reputation of the real wine.

But he did not kill Jack. Next, Nick manages to lift off a print from a broken glass piece; but does not find a match. He then finds a diamond mixed with the smashed glass pieces from the hotel. It has a serial number which could lead them to the buyer. They go to the store and find the store open; but there is a dead body lying and a trail of blood leads Finn towards the back door. But it stops next to a phone; it is Christine’s phone. The dead man is the store owner, Ronald. He was into money laundering but the case was dropped for lack of evidence. The scene at the store could be that of a robbery gone wrong; but the blood found at the store was similar to the one found in Christine’s hotel room.

A print that was lifted off from the store’s safe belongs to James Boyd. Mac knows this guy. Boyd manages Christine’s restaurant. Christine was supposed to fire him as the guy was trouble; he was into gambling and such things. But Nick and Finn tell Mac that there were a lot of texts passed on between Christine, Ronald and Boyd; they were planning to open a new restaurant in Vegas and Christine was the one to set up the meeting. Ronald was supposed to put in the money and the messages seemed very flirtatious. Greg tells Sarah that Ratelle’s alibi checks out. They need a new suspect now and hopes they find one too; the anonymous bidder who bought the wine is Jonah Drake, a plastic surgeon and wine collector. Brass talks to Jonah and Samantha.

They did drink the wine they bought and it did not seem fake. They were planning to buy more! Samantha was against the idea as she thought it was frivolous. He says that he knows nothing about the murder. Greg and Sarah go to a warehouse where Jack has built a set up to make fake wines. They then notice one of the equipment and Greg realizes that this is how he got the hole in his hand. They also find some prints and one of it leads them to Tom; the guy they met outside Vogel’s mansion. Tom tells Sarah that he and Jack were friends and they were in this thing together. He would never kill Jack. He also has an alibi. Next, they find Ronald’s car and there is blood in it. In the trunk they find a dead body of a woman; it is not Christine.

They think that this is the girl who was also involved in the robbery with Boyd. Boyd might have held Christine captive and must have gone back to the hotel to pick her up. They figure out that Boyd switched cars. Henry tells Greg that the blood found in the warehouse belonged to Jack and Tom. But Greg has evidence that Tom was at the strip club; everyone at the club confirmed Tom was there. Tom’s blood shows high levels of estrogen. Greg calls in for his medical records. We then see that they figure out that Tom was a bone marrow donor and he was donating it to his sister, Samantha Wilson! Samantha was working with Jack and Tom and her part was to soften the men. But she fell in love with Jonah and didn’t want him to fall for the scam once again as he wanted to buy a bottle again.

She told Jack that she wanted out and he said that he would just tell Jonah that she used to sleep around with men. She got angry and so she killed Jack. This case is closed. Back to Christine’s case, Boyd is found and Mac walks into the interrogation room. Boyd tells them that Ronald had visited Christine’s restaurant in NY and he wanted to open a similar one in Vegas. Boyd owed a loan shark a lot of money and so Boyd thought that this was his chance. Boyd had access to Christine’s phone, flight tickets and also her restaurant. So, all he had to do is set up a meeting. It was all supposed to be easy.

The dead girl was his girlfriend who was a part of this whole thing; he was planning to use her as she looked a lot like Christine. But things didn’t go as per plan and so he stole the diamonds. He now needs to go to NY with the diamonds. Christine is with his brother. But then the loan shark got hold of them and they are in his custody. So, if he doesn’t go back to NY by the next day, the loan shark will kill his brother and Christine. Mac decides to take Boyd and the diamonds to NY; Russell says that he too will go with him. To be continued.